Aside from my obsession of meat on a stick, I also feel weak in the knees about encased meat. Spain does up some of the most delicious forms I've ever had the pleasure of tasting ::all the sneering may stop now:: To generalists or foreigners a mere peek at the hanging examples in any market or charcutería (butcher) and sausage will likely be one of the only words that comes from his/her mouth. On the other hand, Spaniards, as well as Catalans, Basques and even Andalusians have many different ways of calling these intestine-lined delicacies; embutidos in Spanish, covers the array of cured meats as a whole, but specifically it would behoove one to learn the singular names of each (mostly pork meat/fats but not exclusively). For instance, sobrassada from Mallorca, chorizo and salchichón from Castile & Leon, morcilla from Burgos, and two of my favorites fuet and botifarra from Catalunya. Thankfully, in Barcelona there exists a shrine to this meat product so loved by the Catalans, La Botifarreria, adjacent to the mammoth medieval cathedral built by hand Santa María del Mar, in the ever so cool La Ribera/Born district.

Toni Trave, the meat master, takes traditional Catalan recipes or exotic dishes and turns them on their "tail" - combining foie gras, apples & curry, Roquefort cheese, goat cheese with Asturian cider, figs with jamón and spring onions, chestnuts with wild mushrooms, squid ink, or even seasonal selections like spring calçots - with ground meat. The majority of the shop's offerings, or at least the most ordered, are the raw butifarras for take-away, although other varieties (different levels of curation, but never smoked) such as the popular egg butifarra (eaten during Carnival), Catalan bull, good old jamón, and hamburger patties are also on display for purchase. The staff knows their meats and it's a sure fire way to impress your dinner guests while getting a legitimate piece of Barcelona's culinary scene.